Review - Dead Space 3 (Xbox 360)

With Silent Hill franchise down the toilet & the Resident Evil series following close behind, the only modern survival horror franchise that seems worthy of the genre is Visceral Games Dead Space series and with the third and possibly final installment being released last month, does it stand up as the best entry in the series or does the edition of co-op & a more action orientated gameplay style leave the game in pieces?

Dead Space 3 sees players reprise the role of the space engineer, Isaac Clarke, as he stomps, fixes and cuts his way to the ice planet of Tau Volantis in search of his ex-girlfriend, Ellie, as well as the source of the infamous markers, the structures that caused the necromorph out break years ago. But this time, Isaac is very much NOT alone on his journey, he is joined by the new co-op character, John Carver, who disappears when playing single player to keep the solo experience & atmosphere apposed to spending it with a mindless AI companion, along with some other minor characters that slowly but surely get brutally killed off as the player progresses through the story. This time, the extremists of the Unitology cult are hell-bent on harnessing the power of the markers to ‘make us whole again’. This means that occasionally, the player will encounter human enemies at points throughout the campaign. But these moments are staggered throughout the experience so as to not become a third person space marine shooter… in space.

Missions in Dead Space 3 involve Isaac venturing from one end of a necromorph-infested area to the other to retrieve a part used in a machine that needs to be started in order to progress or fix something that will inevitably break as soon as it’s needed. This is one of the main problems with Dead Space 3; there isn’t a great deal of variety in its missions and this is partly responsible to the lack luster & somewhat confusing story. Previous entries in the series, especially the original Dead Space, that used the claustrophobic setting of the Ishimura & other derelict locations, forced players to constantly be on their toes, where danger could be around every corner. Those sorts of setting lent themselves well to the story & pacing of the game. Dead Space 3, on the other hand, is a little more action orientated. Being set on Tau Volantis, an ice planet believed to be where the markers originated, you’d imagine it would all be harsh outdoor environments that would allow nothing but third person cover based shooting (yes there IS a cover system introduced but it’s not really worth talking about because it’s not really worth using).

For the most part though, players surgically slice & dice their enemies inside the quiet research stations scattered around the planets surface and occasionally pop their heads outside for some epic set piece or beautiful vistas. The upside is the monstrous variety of weapons that can be used to dismember enemies, most of which will be constructed by the player themselves. That’s the most interesting feature to hit the Dead Space formula. Weapon crafting sees players place small scavenger robots in set loot points around the levels to gather resources like scrap metal along with other bits & pieces to then take to a work bench which they can use to either augment their current weapon or make a completely new one from scratch. Crafting allows players to choose from a compact (pistol/plasma cutter size) or a standard (two-handed/assault rifle size) frame. From there, it’s the choice of which upper tool & lower tool that suits your play style. I, personally, preferred a compact frame with a plasma cutter upper tool for mid to long range combat & a ripper blade lower tool incase the beasties got a little too close for comfort.

On top of that, upgrades & modifications can used to further improve the effectiveness of your weapons of choice. Circuits act as upgrades to the upper & lower tools; an example of an upgrade circuit could be anything from ‘+1 damage’ to ‘+3 reload speed & +3 clip size’. With each tool holding a number of these at once & players able to hold two crafted weapons at a time, it’s easy to say that players will become brick powerhouses towards the end of the game. Hours can be spent at a bench looking through different weapon combinations that suit your play style and these combinations can be tested in a separate ‘testing mode’, where the player is able to test their weapons on necromorphs. In this mode the player doesn’t take any sort of damage from enemies, it’s purely available to test out weapon combinations.

Ok so now it’s time to bring forward the ‘elephant in the room’. Dead Space 2 introduced direct PvP in the form of engineer’s vs. necromorphs though it wasn’t very well received; Visceral Games realized this & scrapped it entirely. In its place is a fully co-operative campaign that subtracts some of the games well-known tension & atmosphere but adds some optional co-op specific missions that reveal more of John Carver’s back-story. These missions are delightfully creepy in the sense that the players will experience two completely different points of view.

One of the most memorable moments in these optional missions was a section where Carver would become crippled by visions & transported to a dream state in which player 2 progresses through while at the same time player 1 is fending of necromorphs in reality. Each mission builds towards the resolution of Carver’s story, which ends up being a little anti-climactic for the player who is experiencing it as Isaac because other than dialogue between Carver & Isaac, there isn’t really much feedback for what happens to player 2. Other than that, the game scales difficulty depending on chosen difficulty & whether there are two players or not by adding or subtracting enemies to parts of the game.

When most gamers think ‘survival horror’, elements that may come to mind are limited supplies, tough enemies & a scary atmosphere. Dead Space 3 throws these to the side & replaces them with other features that mix up the formula and paves the way for the next generation of survival horror games. Unfortunately, one of the features that was put to the side was the story, arguably one of the most important parts of survival horror next to the scares but it’s just so much fun to play. I wouldn’t go as far to say that the story ruins the game but if a little more time & effort were spent on it, then this game would have gone from being a great game to an amazing game.

Dead Space 3 refines the elements of its predecessors & introduces some fresh ones that make the experience even more enjoyable.

Dead Space 3 gets 8.5 ‘Muted Microphones’/10

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